Pulse (Dec 2021)
Dark Matter: An Ecopsychological Approach to the Ontology of Plant Expression in Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation and Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly
Abstract
Taking up Michael Marder’s “object of psycho-analysis, wherein we might detect a vegetal approach to the psyche,” and Timothy Morton’s dark ecology, which traces the twisted loops of agrilogistics, this article proposes an ecopsychological approach to the expression of plant soul as the very constitution of human subjectivity. Examining Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, which demonstrates the pretty blue Mors ontologica’s insidious plant agency to cleave the somatic human spirit, and Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, wherein cinematic plant-thinking demands temporal distortions that render the human uncanny, this article positions the plant as the primary mover, the animating force and manifestation of human desire and its expression.
